{"id":282,"date":"2013-08-01T21:36:55","date_gmt":"2013-08-01T21:36:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/content.scienceofecd.com\/secd-intro\/?page_id=282"},"modified":"2025-07-08T16:38:27","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T16:38:27","slug":"cl-1-1-acquiring-language","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/content.scienceofecd.com\/secd-intro\/cl-1-1-acquiring-language\/","title":{"rendered":"CL 1.1 Acquiring language"},"content":{"rendered":"
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AKDN\/Amit Pasricha<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Humans have the unique capacity to create and use language. Other animals can communicate with each other, but their limited numbers of calls or gestures are isolated signals with very specific messages. Human language is flexible<\/strong> and productive<\/strong> \u2013 that is, a small number of symbols (sounds or gestures) can be combined according to a set of shared rules to produce an endless number of messages. For example, in the English language, there are only 26 letters (symbols) that are combined to form words that are then combined to form an endless number of messages. It is estimated there are more than 7000 spoken languages in the world today (Eberhard et al., 2020).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Children begin to communicate at birth using sounds and then gestures. Oral language greatly expands the way in which children can express their needs and feelings, exchange ideas and connect with others. Adults around them often observe that as they learn to talk, children become less like babies and more like “little people”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Humans are prepared to communicate from the moment they are born. Dr. Janet Werker,\u00a0research chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia,\u00a0explains the remarkable spoken language skills of newborns.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\n VIEW<\/span>\n Werker – newborn communication (2:52)<\/span>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
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